There's another way... in addition to determining if the wind is behind or ahead of you, you need to find out which side it's blowing from, and there's a tried-and-true technique for this. As you approach the field at or near pattern altitude, aim the nose at something you can see ahead, then just maintain that compass heading. If the landmark moves left, you are drifting to the right, so the wind is from the left. Vice versa, et cetera.
But it's tricky in simulation to tell which way to actually land on the runway... other than doing a groundspeed check in each direction, without real-life cues like flags, smoke, trees, waves, etc. you don't have much to work with, except maybe tuning in to a nearby ATIS or AWOS/ASOS broadcast (another common practice in real life, BTW... you may decide you don't want to bother going to some airport at all, based on conditions at some nearby airport).
In the end, though, once you commit to an approach, if you seem to be coming in at too fast a groundspeed, well, perhaps you should just try going in the other direction.
That happens in real life, too...
by DenisH » Sat Nov 13, 2010 7:37 pm 
